Joy in the Kitchen!

Biscuits are not my specialty.  You know those big, round, fluffy, moist, biscuits?  I don't make those.  For one thing, I'm too lazy to want to roll them out... and often they've just turned out dry and crumbly.  These Kentucky Biscuits though, always turn out moist and tender.  Unlike drop biscuits, these can still be split for slathering butter and honey.  They dip into soups and stews well.  I haven't tried freezing them, but with the extra moisture, I'll bet they'd freeze nicely. I don't remember where I got this recipe, but I've had it for most of my married life.  It's definitely a keeper. Tonight I served these with Beef Stew. Kentucky Biscuits 2 C. flour 1 T. sugar 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda a dash of salt 1/2 C. margarine or butter 3/4 C. buttermilk Preheat oven to 400.  Mix together all the dry ingredients. Cut butter into dry ingredients until it makes coarse crumbs.  Mix in buttermilk.  Knead a few times until it

I've been wondering what to do with the bag of limes we got at Christmas.  You can only have so many glasses of Sprite with a squeeze of lime. :o)  That dilemma combined with my wishful yearning for summertime, inspired me to try making Chili Lime Chicken.  It would be best on the grill, but I wasn't determined enough to walk through the snow in the dark to grill it.  Tonight we pan fried it and it turned out great!  If I try it again before the snow melts I think I'll try broiling it.  This would be great with a rice pilaf or Spanish rice.  I'm trying to use up the many pounds of potatoes I have stored, so we had baked potatoes with ours. Chili Lime Chicken 4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breast Marinade: 1 1/2 C. yogurt 2-3 tsp. chili powder 1/2 tsp. cumin 1 tsp. salt 3 T. freshly squeezed lime juice (about 1 large lime) Mix well.   Place chicken breasts in gallon size zip-lock bag and pour marinade over.  Zip closed and shake to be sure chicken is we

When I was a little girl, nearly every fall, Mom would make donuts (though she spells it doughnuts and I'm too lazy to type that much lol ).  She makes THE . BEST . DONUTS. EVER !  It was quite a production, making several dozen in a day.  I loved seeing the rows and rows of glazed donuts sitting on the table.  Every time I think of that I remember a book I read in about 3rd grade, Homer Price and the Donut Machine ... when I read that, I could nearly TASTE those donuts. LOL    Lucky girl that I am, using her recipe, and after having watched and then helped at home, I make pretty darn good donuts too. :) If you've never had a home made donut, you're missing out!  They are so much more light and tender than store bought.  They nearly melt in your mouth.... and Mom puts this light maple glaze on hers... Mmmmm!   Mom says she got her recipe from Melba.  Melba lives just down the road from me, she's in her 90's now and has the most beautiful white hair I've eve

Here's another brownie recipe!   You can never have too many, though I have a few that are favorites, and this is one of them.  Mmmmm!  It is similar to the recipe I grew up baking, but they use oil instead of margarine (heart healthier), uses 5 eggs instead of 4, and adds a teaspoon of salt.  Dave got this recipe from a guy he works with.    When I asked for the recipe & Dave brought home a 3x5 card titled "Good Brownies"  I really had to laugh... good brownies - as opposed to those yucky ones. LOL   The name is a good description, but they are so good they deserve a fancier name - I just haven't thought of it yet.  Anyway - Thanks to Einar for these delicious brownies! Einar's Good Brownies 2 C. sugar 1 3/4 C. flour 1/2 C. baking cocoa 1 tsp. salt 5 eggs 1 C. vegetable oil 1 tsp. vanilla 1 C. chopped walnuts (optional) Mix the first eight (or seven if you're not using the walnuts) ingredients and beat until smooth.  Pour into a greased

Mmmmm!   Gooey cream cheese filled chocolate cupcakes were one of my favorite treats growing up.  Mom didn't make them often, but when she did....  YUUUMMMYY!  :)  I prefer these without frosting, but they look nice with it & the kids like them frosted.  My energy level decides whether they're frosted or not most of the time.  Filled Cupcakes 1 cake mix mixed as directed on box OR 1 recipe of cake batter of your choice (I prefer chocolate, but you probably knew that by now, didn't you!) Filling: 1 8 oz. brick of cream cheese, softened 1/3 C. sugar 1 egg 1 tsp. vanilla 1/2 C. chocolate chips Mix everything but the chocolate chips until smooth.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Fill your cupcake liners with the cake batter just as if you were doing regular cupcakes.  Drop 1-2 tsp. of filling on top of the batter in the center of each cup.  Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.  Cool and frost if desired. Joy's Notes:  The filling will sit on top of the batter u

I love sweet and sour foods.  Chicken, pork, meatballs... yummy!  I've been craving some for several weeks now and today is a good day to give in to the craving. :o)  I think I got this recipe from Mom.  It's written on a well used 3x5 card, with only ingredient amounts and a few directions.... like put in pan and bake. LOL  I'm pretty sure I wrote it as I talked to her on the phone.   This is not like the sweet and sour pork or chicken I've had at chinese restaurants... thus the #1 after the title.  I will make and post that type of recipe another time.  It is wonderfully good too. On this dish tonight, I used halved boneless skinless chicken breasts, it was originally written for bone in chicken pieces.  If I had some on hand, I would have used that - it's my favorite.  The skin on the chicken adds a little different flavor.  OR, if you'd rather cut your boneless chicken into bite-size chunks, that works well too. Sweet and Sour Chicken 1 1 frying c

Boy, did we have a feast New Years Eve!   My oldest daughter and her husband and 2 kids came.  We ate, played games, ate, watched a movie, and ate some more. :)  I already posted my recipe for the Fruit Salsa and Cinnamon crisps , but just wanted to share how beautiful our table looked. (Before we started munching... it didn't look quite so tidy afterwards. LOL ) We served chips, cheese & crackers, Cream Cheese Cranberry dip, Layered Bean Dip, Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts (my personal favorite - I probably ate 1/2 of the double batch Audra made.), Ham Roll-ups, Muddy Buddies, Lil' Smokies (of course),  Sausage Balls, Bruschetta, Crudite', and the Fruit Salsa. Keeley, also made a wonderful Chocolate Mousse - and of course I forgot to take a picture of it.  Probably would have drooled all over the camera trying anyway.  It was delicious! Setting out the food in a pretty fashion was fun too.  Dragging out some of our little used dishes (that we save for "speci

Due to the below ZERO temperatures we've been having, I've had such a hankering for soup!  I've been trying to use ingredients on hand for our meals this month... and I've got a TON of potatoes stored in the garage. Okay... so actually only about 150 lbs, but still, a substantial amount.  Most of those potatoes are good old Idaho Russets, BUT, I have 1 burlap bag of beautiful red potatoes grown in our garden this summer.   So, in remembrance of warmer times, we enjoyed this Hearty Red Potato Soup for dinner.  Mmmmm!    I got this recipe from Gracie on the Frugal-Families website .  She said she doesn't remember where she found it and she mentioned she has used broccoli in place of the peas.   My family loves this soup.  My 14 year old son thinks it tastes ALMOST as good as creamed new peas and potatoes. (and THAT's quite a compliment!) If you're out of red potatoes or they are hard to find, a regular potato would work just fine.  The red skin peekin